In my opinion, the manufacturers have boats, and models priced the way they do to keep the used market healthy. If one of the big 3 made a boat (stripped down or not) that you could buy new for $40K, then some of the people that are buying the 2-4 year old boats would buy new boats. When that happens, there's less demand for the 2-4 year old boats at that price point, and they must lower the price to the next "tier" of buyers. This trickles all of the way down the used market then. Now, the cost of ownership of the top end boats is higher, and they sell less of them. So, they can cannibalize the sales of their top end boats with a mid range model, or keep things as is, and keep fueling a strong used boat market with a few new ones a year.
Personally, I think the used boat market is great. I have no issue buying something used, and likely always will. Conversely, others like to buy new. Without each other, we'd both be in trouble.